Wimbledon, now going strictly by ranking, announces 2022 seeds

Wimbledon on Tuesday announced its seeds for the upcoming tournament. Of course, now that the season’s third Grand Slam goes strictly by the ATP and WTA rankings to do its seeding, there are not exactly any earth-shattering developments.

But that doesn’t mean the seedings look exactly like the rankings. Combine injury-related absences with the bans incurred by Russians and Belarusians and the result is a somewhat unusual list of seeded players.

That is especially the case on the men’s side. Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are no strangers to being the top two seeds at majors, but they aren’t the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the world at present. They are third and fourth, respectively, trailing Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev. Medvedev is banned and Zverev is out because of the ankle injury he suffered against Nadal in the French Open semifinals. Fifth-ranked Casper Ruud and sixth-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas round out the top four seeds at the All-England Club.

Carlos Alcaraz, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Hubert Hurkacz, and Matteo Berrettini are the 5-8 seeds. Berrettini is ranked 11th, but he moved into top-eight position thanks to the exits of Medvedev, Zverev, and Andrey Rublev. The Italian certainly belongs in the top eight, as he was the Wimbledon runner-up in 2021 and he is coming off back-to-back titles in Stuttgart and Queen’s Club.

A total of four players in the top 32 are out (also Russia’s Karen Khachanov), which means the list of seeds goes to 36th in the rankings. Dan Evans, Jenson Brooksby, Tommy Paul, and Sebastian Baez are the men who snagged seeded spots as a result of the withdrawals.

In the women’s field there are no changes in the top five. The first absence is No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka, who is from Belarus. After that, though, there are a whole host of players who are sidelined either because of their nationality or injuries. You have to go all the way down to No. 40 in the rankings (Sara Sorribes Tormo) to find the 32nd seed.

Serena Williams, who has not played since Wimbledon last summer, will obviously make her comeback as an unseeded entrant. The 40-year-old is ranked outside the top 1,000.

Only two unseeded players have triumphed at the All-England Club since traditional seeding began in 1927: Boris Becker in 1985 and wild card Goran Ivanisevic in 2001. No unseeded woman has ever won Wimbledon.